#204: The State That Needs No Proof

The State That Needs No Proof A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard Why do you continue to look for some outward sign that your desire has been granted? You assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled for a little while, and then you turn your attention to the world, waiting for it to show you that something has happened. But this very act of waiting for the sign is the denial of the state you profess to have entered. The fulfilled state needs no proof from without. Its proof is the feeling itself. When you have truly become conscious of being the one who has received, you do not search the outer world for confirmation. You rest. You are at peace. You go about your affairs as one in whom the thing is already done. Consciousness is the only reality. What you are conscious of being, you express. If you are conscious of being one who still waits for evidence, then waiting is what you express. If you are conscious of being one who has already received, then the world, which is nothing more than your consciousness out-pictured, must in time reflect that inner fact. But the reflection always follows the assumption. It never precedes it. To demand the reflection before you will rest in the assumption is to remain forever in the state of the one who has not. The state that needs no proof is a state of naturalness. There is nothing strained about it, nothing anxious. You do not feel that you must make something happen. You feel that it has already happened in the only place where creation takes place—in consciousness. From this feeling all things unfold in an orderly manner, without your interference. The how is not your concern. The creative power that you have set in motion by your assumption knows its own way. Your only task is to remain faithful to the feeling of the wish fulfilled and to let that feeling be enough. Many of you have discovered the secret of assumption, yet you have not remained in the assumed state long enough for it to become natural. You assume, and then almost immediately you begin to look for some token that your assumption is working. In that moment you have left the fulfilled state and returned to the state of desire. Desire is the springboard. Fulfillment is the rest upon the other side. You cannot stand with one foot on each side. You must choose. Either you are the one who has it, or you are the one who wants it. The signs you seek are simply the evidence of which state you have chosen to occupy. When you can truly say within yourself, “Thank you, Father,” and feel the reality of those words—not as a future hope but as a present recognition—you have entered the state that needs no further proof. The thanks is not a magical formula. It is the natural response of one who knows he has already received. In that moment of genuine acceptance the search ends. There is nothing left to look for. The Father, your own awareness of being, has given it, and your acceptance has made it yours. The outer world may still show the old picture for a little while, but you are no longer disturbed by it, because you are no longer living in the state that produced the old picture. The old state always demands proof. It says, “Show me first and then I will believe.” But belief that waits for proof is not belief at all. It is only a form of doubt that hopes to be convinced. The true assumption stands alone. It does not lean upon the outer world for support. It is its own support. When you assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and persist in that feeling, you are building upon the rock. The winds may blow and the waves may beat against the house, but it will not fall, because it is founded upon the changeless principle that consciousness is reality. You are told that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The evidence, then, is not in the seen. The evidence is the feeling of the thing itself. When you feel the wish fulfilled, you have the substance. You have the evidence. You do not need the world to give you what you already possess in consciousness. The world will give it in its own time and in its own way, but that is not your concern. Your concern is only to possess the feeling now and to remain faithful to it. Consider what happens when you live in a state that constantly seeks validation. Every morning you wake and look to see if today will bring the sign. Every night you go to bed wondering why it has not yet appeared. Your attention is divided between the inner assumption and the outer appearance. This division is fatal. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot be in the fulfilled state and at the same time be one who is looking for proof of fulfillment. The two states are incompatible. As long as you look for the sign, you are confessing that you have not yet assumed the state. You are still the man who wants, not the man who has. The fulfilled state is a state of wholeness. There is no lack in it, and therefore no need to seek what is already present. In this state you do not look for love; you are loving. You do not look for success; you are successful in consciousness. You do not look for health; you are healthy in your feeling. The outer world may continue for a time to reflect the old state, but you remain unmoved. You do not argue with appearances. You do not try to change them by force. You simply persist in the new feeling, knowing that the outer must in time conform to the inner. This persistence is not a grim holding on. It is a quiet resting in the assumption. It is the sabbath state in which you cease from all labor of trying to make it so. You have done the only thing required of you—you have assumed the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Now you rest. And in your rest the creative power does its work. The interval of time between the assumption and its visible expression is simply the time it takes for the old impression to fade and the new to appear. But in consciousness itself there is no interval. The assumption is instantaneous. The fulfillment in the outer world is the gradual unfolding of that instantaneous act. Tonight, as you prepare for sleep, experiment with this truth. Choose one desire, whatever it may be. Do not argue about its possibility. Do not wonder how it can come to pass. Simply assume the feeling that it is already so. Feel the relief, the joy, the naturalness of having received it. Do not ask for a dream or a vision or any special sign. Do not even think about the sign. Let the feeling be so vivid and so complete that it fills your consciousness to the exclusion of all else. Then let sleep come while you are still in that feeling. In sleep you are present with the Lord of your awareness, and the state you carry with you into sleep is the state that will be expressed in your waking world. When you wake in the morning, do not immediately rush to see if the sign has appeared. Remain for a little while in the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Carry that feeling with you into your day. Whenever the old state tries to reassert itself by showing you the same old evidence of lack or delay, gently return to the feeling. Do not fight the appearance. Do not try to force it to change. Simply ignore it and be in the new state again. In this way you remain faithful to the assumption, and faithfulness is the bridge over which the invisible becomes visible. As you do this, you will discover a wonderful freedom growing within you. You will find that you need fewer and fewer signs to assure you that your assumption is working. Eventually you may find that you need none at all. For the joy of the assumption itself becomes sufficient. The feeling of the wish fulfilled carries its own reward, quite apart from the visible fulfillment. You are blessed in the state itself. And from this inner blessedness all things flow outward in perfect order. The need for proof is born of the belief that there is a power outside yourself that must be persuaded or compelled. But when you know that your own awareness of being is the only creative power, and that what you assume this power to be, it becomes, then all searching ceases. You are not a beggar waiting for the universe to give you something. You are the operant power. You decree by assuming, and what you assume, you become. There is no higher authority to which you must appeal. The sign, when it comes, is but the echo of your own inner word. But the word itself is creative, whether the echo is heard immediately or not. You have been told that you shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass. But the decreeing is done in consciousness, not in words spoken to another. You decree by becoming conscious of being the thing decreed. When you have become it in consciousness, the decree is established. There is no need to look for the establishment. It is already established in the only place that matters—in you. The outer world will in time bear witness, but you will not be waiting for that witness. You will be living from the fulfilled state itself. This is the great secret that sets men free. It is not a secret of doing more or trying harder. It is a secret of being. When you are the fulfilled one in consciousness, you have done all that is required. The rest is not your labor. It is the natural expression of the state you have assumed. And because you no longer need the world to confirm what you already know, the world is free to conform without resistance. For resistance is born of doubt, and doubt is born of the need for proof. So tonight, I ask you to lay down the burden of looking for signs. Take up instead the easy yoke of assumption. Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled and rest in it. Let it be enough. Let it be natural. Let it be the very ground upon which you stand. In this state there is no anxiety about tomorrow, for tomorrow is already contained in the feeling of today. There is no regret about yesterday, for yesterday has been revised by the new assumption. There is only the quiet joy of being what you have assumed yourself to be. And as you persist in this state that needs no proof, you will find that the whole world begins to rearrange itself around you. Not because you have forced it, but because you have changed the cause of which the world is the effect. You have changed your consciousness, and the world, which is your consciousness expressed, must change with it. But you will not be anxiously watching for the change. You will be too occupied with living from the joy of the assumption. And in that occupation you will discover the peace that passes all understanding—the peace of the fulfilled state. You are not becoming something new. You are simply assuming that you are already that which you desire to be. And in this assumption, without the need for any sign or confirmation from without, you have entered the kingdom. The kingdom is not a far-off place that you reach after many signs have appeared. It is the state of consciousness you enter when you assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and find that feeling sufficient. In that state all things are possible, for you have become one with the creative power itself. And the creative power needs no proof that it is creative. It simply is. Go forth from this hour, then, no longer as one who seeks. Go forth as one who has assumed. Go forth as one who is fulfilled. Go forth as one who needs no sign to tell him what he already knows in consciousness. For in the end, the only proof that matters is the feeling of the wish fulfilled. And when that feeling is yours, truly yours, all else follows in its appointed time. But you will not be waiting. You will be living. And in the living, you will discover that you have become the very thing you once sought. You have become the proof.